Govt will double farmers’ income by 2022: PM Modi

Mirzapur & New Delhi, July 15: The government aims to double farmers’ income by 2022 and end the divide between the rich and the poor, said Prime Minister Narendra on Sunday on the second of his tour of eastern Uttar Pradesh.
“Our government visualises a new India that takes full care of the sick, the poor, the children, the youth and the farmers,” he said in Mirzapur, accusing Opposition parties of disregarding farmers when they governed Uttar Pradesh.
“Those who are shedding crocodile tears for farmers today should be asked as to why they did not complete irrigation projects which were left incomplete throughout the nation during their tenure,” he said at a public rally after inaugurating the Bansagar canal project and laying the foundation for a medical college in Mirzapur.
“I have had the opportunity to dedicate many projects of development to the public in the past two days and introduce new schemes,” he was quoted by PTI as saying.
“Previous governments used to come up with incomplete projects and stall them. You are the people who suffered. Had this project (Bansagar) been completed beforehand, you would have been benefitted by it two decades ago.”
Mirzapur is a stronghold of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ally, the Apna Dal (S), a party with influence over the OBC population. Modi, in a speech at Azamgarh on Saturday, accused Congress president Rahul Gandhi of siding with Muslim men but not standing up for the rights of Muslim women.
The BJP aims to consolidate its support base in Uttar Pradesh, where it has seen a series of defeats at the hands of a united opposition. The candidate of Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), a small regional Jat-dominated party centred in western Uttar Pradesh, won the Kairana Lok Sabha seat in May, with the support of the Congress, Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party.
The Kairana victory came two months after the BJP lost the Gorakhpur and Phulpur bypolls to the SP, which was backed by BSP.